RallyNorth.net

Lawrence runs over West

Saturday, September, 18 By David Willis
Staff writer

MANCHESTER — Nick Lawrence had to admit, he was a bit worn out while leaving the field.

“I’m pretty exhausted,” he said with a laugh. “I was running pretty hard.”

The only thing slowing Lawrence down was the yard marker he tripped over running onto the field after halftime, as the senior erupted for a career-night, rushing for a whopping 296 yards and leading Timberlane to a dominating 38-21 victory over Manchester West last night.

West (0-3) moved down from Division 1 to Division 2 before this season.

“He had an amazing night,” said fellow senior quad-captain Jarred Diorio. “We wanted to run it down their throats, and Nick played amazing. He racked up a lot of yards and just led us to a great win.”

With his brother, starting quarterback Nate Lawrence, out of the game with a concussion, Nick Lawrence took the Owls (1-2) on his shoulders.

Lawrence carried just 19 times for his 296 yards — a stunning 15.6 yards a carry — and four touchdowns including scoring runs of 65 and 67 yards. He needed just six carries to rack up 113 yards in the second half to put the game away.

Those numbers bested Lawrence’s output in the first two games of the season combined (41 carries, 240 yards, 1 TD).

“He is just such a powerful runner,” said Diorio. “He gets down the field quickly and can just make people miss. We were going to keep it on the ground and it worked very well.”

In fact, the Owls did not attempt a single pass in the game, with all 362 yards coming on the run. In his first start, sophomore QB Ryan McCarthy needed only hit running back Luke Ouellette (five carries, 32 yards) on a swing play behind the line of scrimmage. Ouellette added the other score on a 1-yard plunge.

“We knew we could run because we have to very experience backs,” said Diorio, who kicked a 23-yard field goal and was 5 for 5 on extra points. “We had a lot of different blitzes and formations for whatever they threw at us.”

Lawrence also led the way on defense for the Owls, registering a team-best eight tackles. Shane Tremblay added seven tackles while Dillon Brann added five stops. Daniel Diodati and Joshua David each chipped in with a sack.

“I thought we controlled all three fazed of the game,” said Timberlane head coach Kevin Fitzgerald. “On offense we controlled the ground game and the clock. We know that Nick is a tremendous back and we are going to ride him whenever we can. They hit us with a few big plays, but overall our defense played very well and controlled the line of scrimmage and Jarred kicked the ball very well.”